


The Cat Guardian: Licorice Stick

by I_Am_A_Silver_Lining



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF James "Rhodey" Rhodes, BAMF Pepper Potts, BAMF Tony Stark, F/M, Girl falls into another universe trope, Hero Worship, Iron Man 1, Multi, Oc will do everything and anything for Tony Stark, Other character tags will be added later, Overprotective OC, PROFANITY GALORE, Platonic oc/Tony Stark, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Puns and References, Shameless, T.S.D.S (Tony Stark Defense Squad), Therapy cat, Tony Stark Gets a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Trauma, grandiose use of innuendos, i swear like a sailor, shameless self-insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-06-21 19:42:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15565041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Am_A_Silver_Lining/pseuds/I_Am_A_Silver_Lining
Summary: Summary: Corvin wakes up. She’s a cat now. A big, fluffy cat with no idea how it happened or why. She thought things were crazy with just that, but then she meets a familiar face under a different name and things get even crazier.OR!In which a modern-girl falls into the Marvel Universe and is shifted into a cat. Bumps into Tony Stark and decided to follow him home because he's a magnet for trouble and she had a bleeding heart and a low-key-hero-worship-hard-on for Iron Man.Some mythological/magical bullshit happens later, but Marvel was already full of that before she got there, totally not her fault.





	1. Clique Beginning Title Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cat form: https://d2pu2bk1b66iw6.cloudfront.net/photos/2015/07/02/6-108473-red-norwegian-forest-cat-1435853098.jpg

This was rotten. 

This was awful.

This was fffuuuccKKKING AWESOME!

Ok, it was a bit disconcerting, but honestly, waking up as a cat was kind of one of those things you wonder about every now and then and she was just along for the ride. Corvin did panic quite a bit at first, waking up in an ally screaming and hyperventilating, which came out as meowing and hissing. But after a few minutes (read: hours) of it, she sat her ass down and thought about it. 

Somewhere deep in her bring she could say that she was upset and overall shaken, truth to it, but on the surface she was intrigued. How many people would give their left foot to be in her shoes -paws?- right now? She had speculated before what it would be like, to be a fat, lazy cat without a care in the world, loved by all because she had toe beans and could turn into a bread loaf when lying down. To sleep all day and see in the dark, to get pet by egear people who cooed at her for doing ab-so-fucking-lutly nothing. 

The introvert in her cackling madly in wicked glee while the rational part of her was optimistically hoping she would change back shortly. She didn’t know how this came about either, she was just sitting on her couch, minding her business. Had a coffee in hand and was reading some long, well written fanfiction about Lord of the Rings. She was totally immersed in the story when suddenly it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room and everything went fuzzy. Like that feeling when your foot goes asleep and you try and walk on it after. Pins and needles, but all over her body. Next thing she knew, she was pint-sized and furry in an ally.

It was actually really frustrating now that she thought about it. How did she get here? Why was she here? Where the hell even  _ was _ here?

Ok. Damn. What should she do? She could sit there, in the ally way for another few hours, or hell, days even, contemplating her sudden feline reality, or she could get moving before it got dark. As a cat, she probably had a million new things to worry about now. Like dogs or a misplaced placed boot. 

Setting off for the end of the ally, Corvin trotted on her tiny paws, wobbling on her legs for a moment. She was used to two legs, not four, and she had to think about her steps so she wouldn't trip on the back of her own foot like an ameture. Took her a moment to figure it out, but soon enough she was on the move.

‘Ok, im in a town of some sort, hopefully somewhere close to where I live.’ Corvin thought, contemplating on how she was going to get home, or get help. As much as she wanted to explore the world from the perspective of a cat, she knew the necessity of getting back. She couldn’t realistically spend the rest of her life like this. She had a job, responsibilities, two lizards to feed and a date with her couch and Criminal Minds. And possibly the nearest hospital. 

Or vet. 

Snorting at her own dumb joke, which came out like one of those cute cat sneezes you see that break the internet, Corvin reached the end of the ally and peaked out. 

Shit ton of people. God. Ok, she could do this. 

Corvin looked around, trying to look for an identifiable landmark but finding none.

‘Where is The Bean when you actually want to see it, damnit.’ she huffed and darted out of the ally, staying close to the edge of the building to avoid the feet of the pedestrians. Her tail (she had a fuckin  _ tail _ ) high in the air and flicking in slight agitation as she made her way down the street. 

It was so damn loud, holy crap. It was like someone had turned up the 1-10 dial on the radio to 11. Everything smelled so strongly, the good smelled fucking amazing, and the bad smelled so putrid she had to bite her tongue to keep the bile down. And her sight was better than ever! She had been slightly nearsighted before, not too bad, just had to wear glasses while she was driving to read the road signs, but now she could see everything! Dust mites in the air, the fly-away hairs on a person four blocks down, the plumage of a bird 6 down. It was awesome. 

She could get used to the eyesight if anything. 

  


It didn’t take Corvin long to realize she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Two major things happened:

Number 1, the buildings looked all wrong, too expensive and large. The urban area was crowded and loud, people wearing little to almost no clothing (not that she’s shaming), and it was fucking HOT as fuck. Corvin was sure she was sweating under her fur, even though she was also sure cats can’t sweat. And it extra sucked because she was some type of long-haired cat.

Another thing was the salt in the air, the distinct seaweed taste on the tongue that only the ocean can give. This brought a sense of hopelessness and anger to Corvin, who was a stone-cold inland, midwesterner. From the ‘ope lemme slide right by ya’ saying to the disgusting Superman icecream, the Great Lakes of Michigan were practically a walk from her back door. To be on the edge of the sea when she was last a bit over 800 miles from the nearest ocean, was more than slightly jarring. She would have stomped her feet if she was on two again. 

Number 2, and boy was it a doozy. 

  


Corvin had been meandering around for a handful of days, 8 days to be precise, after her realization of how far away from home she was. It was a strange experience all around. She had found out from a sign that she was in Malibu, California. She almost choked on her tongue when she read it. Things were hard the first few days, there were surprisingly few strays out, she only came across one cat and two dogs. Corvin had ran from them before they could get their jaws on her. She had found a secluded cardboard box between a dumpster and a building for that first night, shivering not from the temperature, but from panic and self pity. Thick little cat tears had ran down her furry face as she wheezed. It was a depressing sight that would have tugged on the heartstrings of any who saw. Lay on ‘Arms of an Angel’ and she’d been fit for a ASPCA commercial. 

Her second day was much more frantic as she searched the area she had showed up at. She had ran herself ragged that day looking for a way back, for someone to help her. All it had ended up with was her dodging the Animal Control like Batman from Gotham PD. She had passed out in a different box somewhere far away, the crying and wheezing back. Apparently, her little cat body was not made for gross sobbing but hell if she cared.

The third day was depressing. She was hungry, tired and upset. She was able to convince a few people to throw her some food scraps and give her a bit of water. Eating off the ground was not the highlight that day, but she was hungry. Tiredly mowing at passersby until she was full was embarrassing.

It was her fifth day that she decided to say ‘fuck it, what happened happened and i cant force my body to change back until it’s time.’ It was like some ultimate ‘chill-out’ button had been pressed. That day she focused on what  _ she _ needed. Food, water, sleep and bath-time. 

Bathing herself was an interesting chore, mainly because her human self would never lick herself clean, no-thank you. So she found a shallow fountain and got in under the spray. Thankfully she wasn’t susceptible to the ‘all cats hate water’ troupe and had a pleasant time. She felt fine licking herself in general areas like her legs afterwards because she read somewhere cat saliva does something for the fur or whatever. She was very content basking in the sun for the rest of the day.

Also! She had found out what she looked like. Apparently her ‘inner-now-outer’ cat form was some type of Norwegian Forest cat (only reason she knew is because she entertained getting one in the past). She was on the thin size for a cat, probably due to the lack of food, but she was still 11 pounds of pure floof. She was a rusty reddish-brown color with a darker shade running tiger stripes through it. From the tip of her forehead, spreading downward along her face and coating her entire underbelly, her color was white. She also had white ‘socks’ as they call it, while the rest of her leg was the reddish-brown. All-in-all, she thought she was a very pretty cat. 

Corvin did her own thing for the next few days, exploring and sightseeing, begging food off tourists with bleeding hearts for cute cats, basking in the hot sun before laying in the fountain she had found. She had quickly become a tourist attraction, which surprisingly got Animal Control off her back. They had tried catching her for awhile, before shop owners started saying good things about her. Money did wonders, and in Malibu it was a-plenty. 

She probably had her picture taken a thousand times, even posed for them, too. She wasn’t all that keen on people touching her, their petting was always too rough and pulled at her fur uncomfortably. She hissed at more than a few people who tried to touch her tail or who wiggled their hands too close to her face. Heightened senses meant she didn’t like that, and anything that touched her whiskers was a big ass no-no. However, she did sit still for those who brought her food and minded her face and tail. Positive conditioning. 

It was on the eighth day when she had the rug pulled out from under her furry feet.

It was getting dark and thankfully cooler, the ocean pushing out a cool breeze that shoved most of the humidity away and left her able to breath a bit better. She had just settled down on a nice concrete bench, a long-forgotten twizzler stick her only company, to watch the sunset with her new-found amazing eyesight when someone sat next to her. She didn’t bother looking up, lazing there for a moment, sitting like a bread loaf with her legs tucked under her. Another tourist to bother her, hopefully one who knew her ‘rules of conduct’ as she liked to call them. 

“You know you’re trending on this location’s twitter feed, right?” an oddly familiar voice said. Corvin looked up sharpy and had to choke back a startled meow.

‘HOLY SHIT, IT’S ROBERT DOWNEY JR.’ she thought before being overcome with a meme she had seen of that actor that played spiderman in CA:CW of him also freaking out about RDJ. ‘ _ oh my god, it’s RobertDowneyJr _ .’ God, that meme went on forever, but it was golden. 

Shaking the thought out of her mind, she focused on the icon before her. He sat there, tapping on his phone before holding it out to her as if he expected a cat could read it but more than likely doing it for his own amusement. And yes, there she was in all her glory, and was that a fucking Amaro filter? 

“Be careful, Kit-cat, you might steal my thunder.” RJD said with a grin, his eyes sparkling. 

He didn’t look dissimilar to how he looked during the IronMan and Avengers filming (to which she was an avid fan), from the designer glasses and goatee with sharp-enough-to-cut-a-man edges, to his designer leather shoes that probably cost more than her yearly paycheck. 

“So I hear I have to pay a fine to touch the cat deity or forfeit my soul to your claws.” he pulls out a small bag from his pocket and gives it a small shake. “I’m not one to skimp on paying for a date so I got you the good stuff.” he winked down at Corvin, carrying on a conversation as if she was some regular-ol-joe off the block and not a cat. But he placed a piece of shrimp down in front of her and she wasn’t going to be the one to bring up his dubious sanity. 

Corvin chowed down on the shrimp, taking dainty little bites, low-key hoping to impress him with her ‘impeccable’ cat manners. He steadily fed her the shrimp piece by piece, not touching her at all during it. A low, rumbly purr rose from her throat (and wasn’t that a trip when it first happened). She hadn’t had shrimp in a while, mostly chicken and tuna that the tourists gave her. 

It was a very pleasant moment, and when she was full she stood, scooting closer to him, postured in optimal petting position. RDJ let out a chuckle and gave her head a small pat, fingers gliding along her ears gently. 

‘Thank whatever graces that he is the ONE PERSON who knows how to correctly pet a cat in this damn city.’ Corvin though, butting her head into the hand. He continued, moving his hand down the arch of her back before petting at the area right above her tail, digging in a little harder. 

‘Yeeeeeeesssssssssss’ 

It only got better when he added his other hand and scratched under her chin with the tips of his fingers, getting good between the fur but not hard enough to pull uncomfortably. 

It was like the fucking rapture. Her soul had ascended and lived in a completely blessed state of being. Goddamn angels were singing, damnit. 

She was probably making embarrassing noises, even for a cat, but who cared? This was amazing. 

The godsend of a man continued for a good while, even allowing her to climb into his lap and rub her furry body along his as she was high as a kite off endorphins. But all-too-soon it was over and he gave her a few last pats. The sun had set, casting the sky in dark reds and purples that slowly faded to black. 

“Gotta head home Licorice stick, the world waits for no man, no matter the cat.” RDJ stated, “quick pic?” he leaned down, taking out his phone and putting it in selfie mode to snap a quick pic of her snuggled into him like pillow, one paw stretched up, patting his hand in hopes of more petting. 

Honestly, it was an adorable picture and Corvin may-or-may-not have posed for it. 

“#CatOfZumaBeach, #TonyStark, #LicoriceStick #Kit-Cats-” He rattled off about a dozen more tags, amusing her to no end. He even referenced Stark, which was funny, he emulates the character to a ‘T’. 

“Well, there we go Kit-cat, posted. Soon we will take the internet by storm.” he crooned dramatically with his head tilting back as if he was ready to cackle or maybe howl at the moon. But, disappointingly, he did neither and looked back down at her. He gave her one last pat on the head and stood, walking away down the boardwalk. 

Corvin sat in silence for a moment, a war going on in her mind for a fat second before one side won.

‘Hell, if I’m stuck like this, might as well have a good time.’ she thought as she hopped off the bench and padded after the man. 

Said man who jumped into a car that probably cost more than her old house (and probably all her previous belongings) did. If only it wasn’t yellow. God she hated most, if not all, yellows. 

Sadly, Corvin had wasted precious time being disgusted by the shade of yellow of his car, so when she was about to run over and hop in, the door closed and he sped off. 

Fantastic. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooo first Marvel fic, hopefully i can take this off the ground and feed you all the bullshit-shameless-self-inserty-ness like fine caviar made of gleeful breaking and abhorrent application of cliques and troupes, finely dusted with the finest puns and references. 
> 
> good luck.


	2. Chapter 2: Finding Things out the Weird Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corvin follows her gut (aka: her hottie radar)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: *looks down at all the kudos and bookmarks that have been dumped into my lap* The hell am i supposed to do with these?????  
> Honestly, idk why you all like my crap-tastic writing, but we almost hit 100 kudos for my shit-post-married-word-vomit-then-had-a-kid chapter, so maybe im doing something right? Or maybe our world has filled us with so much depression and apathy that we have to read crappy stories to feel something in our dead, dead souls.  
> see you all at 6pm to scream into the void!

 

Chapter 2: Finding Things out the Weird Way

 

Corvin honestly didn’t have the high hopes of locating RDJ after that, so instead she wandered aimlessly around, following a tug in her gut that just had her moving. It was night time now, but Malibu was famed for the night life so it was bright enough out it might as well have been day.

The foot traffic was worse at night, Corvin had learned quickly. Drunk people had a habit of stumbling everywhere unpredictability, leading to her getting trod on a few more times than she was willing to admit. But, thankfully, the hussle and bussle slowly melted away to a more scenic roadway with no foot traffic. Actually, there was no traffic at all.

Wait, was this a driveway?

A single row of palm trees lined the side of the road, a meticulously tended lawn sprawled out on either side. And was that a helicopter pad? Damn, this person was loaded. At the end of the curving drive was a house. Well, more like a mansion. It was fuckin huge and practically _oozed_ the aura of money. She wouldn’t be surprised if it had a golden toilet, maybe some of those diamond-glass chandeliers or platinum coffee cups. She didn’t know how the 1% liked to spend their 90% of the American wealth.

Ah, salt...  

Anywho, this place was very modern, all sleek lines with white marble and gray steel. The main entrance held a circle drive with a small oasis in the center, palm trees sticking up in different directions. To her smaller stature, the place was ginormous, not that it wouldn’t be even if she was in her human body, but damn.

Question was, what now? She didn’t intend to come here, just followed where her feet took her. She supposed the huge place warranted an expedition of exploration.

Padding around the oasis, Corvin moved to the side of the mansion. She inspected the side of the house, stepping over the lights that lined the side of the drive and casting dramatic shadows over her form in the darkness of the evening.

Sniffing the air, she could smell something familiar, and realized it was the same scent that came from RDJ.

 _Holy shit, what are the odds_.

Corvin moved to the door, sitting in front of it and wondering what the hell she was going to do next. She could find a way in, wiggle her way into his good graces. Didn’t he have kids? She has no idea how old they are, she wasn’t up to snaz with celebrities.

Hopefully they like cats. Maybe she could become some sort of pseudo cat nanny. But then again, the thought of tiny child hands tugging along her fur makes her anxious. Maybe she can just hide from all but RDJ and his wife? Chill like the best cat so they won't get rid of her until she can find a way home.

Now, she could do that, or she could snoop around the property for a bit…

Snooping was fun.

With no small amount of glee, Corvin took off around the house to explore.

 

The property was like a Disney Land for cat-sized visitors. It had so many nooks and crannies that were far too small for humans, but just a slight squeeze for her. Ramps two inches wide she could climb to the roof on and holes in the decorative roof plating (suspiciously looking like blast-proof support struts) that she could shimmy through to the other side. Beyond the struts was a sleek, modern-looking roof, mainly flat with gentle slopes down that were aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

She could waltz across the roof, down the slopes to another part of the roof that curled away from the main part of the house and overlooked the sea. From the lower angle this roof provided, she could see a pool on the other side of the house and, if she shimmied down a particularly narrow patch of roof, a large window to part of the house.

Which was where she was now, peeping like a creeper and feeling only slightly weird by it.

She appeared to be looking through a window on the far left side of the main living room. A living room that this author wasn’t going to trouble herself writing about because explaining it would take too damn long. It was expensive and modern looking, it had a couch and a kitchenette, that’s all you need to know. Also there was a waterfall around a circle staircase and Corvin thought that was both excessive and awesome.

 _I want a waterfall_ , Corvin hummed and hawed in her mind, scooting closer to the window. Waterfalls made her feel that zen vibe she tried (and failed) to achieve when she was human, so she had stuck to the opposite vibe. Leather jackets didn’t agree with her, but she thought she looked damn good in black fishnets and ankle-breaker heels. Hippy wannabe and stripper aspirations aside, the waterfall was a nifty decoration.

There wasn’t anyone in the room. Also, it was pretty darn clean, which begged to question how the hell it was if RDJ was sporting a few tiny troublemakers. Maybe she was wrong in that regard, or maybe they were older?

Corvin’s cat-face scrunched up in doubt. Something wasn’t sitting right, but she wasn’t omnipotent so she was willing to hedge she read something wrong.

Pressing her face to the glass, she observed the room, taking in all the details, her mind wandering to the past few days as she stared at the waterfall. It was like meditation. Letting all the thought just float out of her head as she stared at the water flowing down into the pool that circled the staircase like a moat. Little blotches of red slid across her vision as she sunk deeper into the cat-trance, the blobs of color floating around the room in lazy, unconcerned motions. It was kind of like when one closes their eyes and can see a flicker of color behind them.

What sent her back to reality was the lights, the house lights, flickered for a moment. Blinking out of her trance, Corvin backed up from the window. The red flickered out of existence and she wrote it off as one of those cat things.

Looking around the room once again, Corvin was startled to see a man had been standing there, looking up at her with a flabbergasted expression. RDJ said something, his words so muffled by the glass (probably some sort of bulletproof stuff) that even her enhanced hearing couldn’t make it out. No doubt it had something to do with her.

Corvin decided then that her presence was probably not welcome like this, staring at him through the window like a gremlin, and shuffled back up to the main part of the roof.

She sat on the lower part of the roof for a bit, wondering what to do next, to go down and see him, meet and greet the fam and maybe get tossed out or taken in, or just slink off into the night. But her decision was made for her when RDJ came up onto the roof himself.

“How the hell did you get here? I’m all for taking a pretty lady home, but normally she comes through the front door rather than sit on my roof.” he grinned, walking from the higher part to her lower part of the roof. As he got closer she could see his grainy jeans, stained with something dark and oily in splotches along his outer thighs and above the knees. He also wore a black and silver Metallica t-shirt that looked well worn and well loved. The lights from both the large windows below the eaves and the skylights in the roof cast sharp, dramatic shadows across his body and face, reminding Corvin of something straight out of The godfather or The Addams family. RDJ did have some killer cheekbone definition like Morticia Addams.

He squatted next to her within touching distance, looking her over with a critical eye.

“You know, I’m not overly fond of cats, or animals in general. I know, crime against the universe, but everyone says I can't stand someone being more important than me in the room, and the cat always takes the limelight.” he said, self deprecation and boastful ego laced in his voice so tightly she could have used it as a rope to climb Mt Everest.

And like the Grinch, her heart grew three times its size.

Corvin always had a ridiculously large amount of sympathy and empathy. She couldn’t **not** comfort this man.

Standing back up from where she sat, she moved closer to him, mowing softly up at him like she was saying ‘ _hey._ ’ She bumped her head against his knee, feeling the texture of his jeans pulling lightly at her fur.

She caught the look on his face as she moved back, a curious but slightly miffed expression. Was touching a no-go? She couldn’t exactly ask.

But before she could do anything, she was scooped up into a pair of surprisingly muscular arms.

 _Ah, this is the life_ , she thought, inner self-indulgent imp making triumphant heu-heu-heu sounds.

She had to point out that he smelled pretty darn good, a musky cologne that smelled like it cost an arm and a leg, motor oil and metal with a hint of what she was pretty sure was a bourbon or scotch coming from his breath. It was one of those smells that sat in the back of your throat, one that made you breath in deeper to try and memorize it just right because you knew you’d never find it anywhere else.

She settled into his arms, but it was clear he didn’t know how the hell to hold a cat. Her back legs dangled in the air as his arms were around her middle, front legs held at an awkward angle. It put her whole body into an uncomfortable tension, the weight of her body focused on a single point in her back that made it ache.

Corvin let out an irritated grumble, wiggling her back legs and trying to find purchase on the man’s body to take the tension off.

“Stop wiggling you oversize fur-ball.” RDJ huffed, hauling her further up in his arms. Thankfully the shifting allowed her back feet to find purchase on the underside of his arms. With her claws that she may or may-not have forgotten about.

“Son of a bitch!” he yelled, letting her go, which tugged her hooked back claws out of his arm, which prompted more cursed.

‘Learn how to hold a damn cat, you ass’ she mowed and hissed up at him after she landed back on the roof.

“It's not my fault cat’s are built like limp noodles.” he sassed back, as if reading her mind. He looked down at the rows of thin scratches along the back of his arm, the line of the scratch bright white with droplets of blood dotting it, the area around it was red as if someone had slapped the arm. “Look what you did, Puss In Boots.” he said in an accusing tone, holding his arm out to her as if to guilt her.

Admittedly, she did feel a little guilty. But it’s not like she could show him so she sat back on her hindquarters and reached up with her two front paws. The balancing act was a bit difficult, and she wobbled a bit as she reached up to the arm that was very much out of her range.

He gave her a peculiar look and lowered his arm, as if testing her or himself. She ignored the expression and wrapped her paws (claws retracted, she had to think about it for it to work) and pulled his arm to her face. She gave the arm a few presses against her face, not licking it but kinda just mashing it to her face near the scratches.

He gave her a flabbergasted look.

“Did… did you just kiss my boo-boos?” he choked out, like he just saw both most unexpected and amusing thing ever. Like a flying pig or singing walrus. She gave him the best smug look a cat face could, which looked like a fairly normal cat face, because normal cats are in an eternal state of smugness.

He seemed to shake off whatever funk her sloppy attempts to ‘kiss it better’ put him in.

“You’re previous owners sure trained you weird.” RDJ said, placing a hand over the scratched area. If Corvin though she could shrug without freaking him out, she would. But she was willing to just let him think she was some over-trained cat. “Can you adhere to commands, I wonder?” he mused to her, fingers tapping on his arm like a nervous or thoughtful ticc.

He gave her a serious look, which she didn’t (read: couldn’t) take seriously.

“Sit,” he said, with as much conviction as possible, like the world would bend down on it’s knees had he asked it. Corvin, gleefully, ignored him.

“Erm.. play dead? Roll over? Handstand?” he rattled off more, seeming to grow more and more petulant with each failed attempt. It _almost_ broke her resolve, seeing those puppy dog eyes aimed at her, be she held on, knowing it would be worth it should he fall into her trap.

“Come on, you can kiss owies, but you can’t sit or roll over? Come on now, what kind of weirdo cat are you?” he amped it up, going full dramatics. Talk about a diva. But Corvin was soaking it up, finding his antics humorous. “Do I have to beg? Please, sit?”

He said it snidely, fully expecting her not to listen, but too much on a roll to stop with the whole act. Which made his facial expression all the sweeter to her when she _did_ sit down.

She was laughing internally at his wholey indignant expression.

“Smart-ass cat,” he said, crossing his arms and giving her an ‘I find this vaguely insulting but also humorous’ look. She had a feeling he wore that look a lot, if how the laugh/frown lines on his face perfectly moved into the look. Corvin’s tail flicked behind her, a cool ocean breeze catching in her fur.

He stood back up, still holding onto his injured arm with the other.

“Well, I’m getting the hell off this roof, it's cold as hell up here and I’m not a fan.” He hummed and began to walk back to where he had come from and Corvin didn’t hesitate to follow him down.

 

The next few hours were a bit of a rush. A whole lot happened and yet, a whole lot didn’t happen.

For one, she realized she was utterly fucked.

This grand epiphany happened when she slipped into the mansion and the fucking thing _talked_.

“Sir, It appears you have a guest,” a British voice called from the ceiling, causing no small amount of shock from her furry self. More so because she so fucking _knew_ that voice, and if it was the real deal and not some very very elaborate prank, then she was far more screwed than just being stuck as a cat. And she didn’t know a single soul that would go to such lengths at her expense.

And you know that gut feeling you get when you know something to be true even though you absolutely wish it wasn't? Yeah, she had it in heaps and bounds.

She had, at that moment of revelation, stared at RDJ -- _oh god, no, it was_ **_Tony Stark_ ** \-- in such bafflement and shock, she was sure she was petrified. Or dead.

Thankfully, Stark ( _oh_ **_goooood_ ** ) didn’t seem to notice, making coffee for himself and pulling out something from his massive fucking fridge. It was chicken, she would later find out.

After about fifteen minutes of constant internal screaming, the cause of said internal screaming morphed from shock to elation. Because she was a super big Iron Man fan.

It would be the first of many that she was grateful for her sudden furry situation, or else she would have definitely said something very very stupid and embarrassed herself. Corvin was pretty sure her brain-to-mouth filter was broken and she would have blurted out something mortifying, like a squeal, or rub herself up and down him like a stripper on a pole. She was sure her dignity would never ever recover.

She was saved from sure death from humiliation by the grace of her feline problem. Instead of making ignominious noises or getting arrested for sexual harassment, she was reduced to some weird hissing purr noise that sounded like she had something stuck in her throat.

Thank whatever divine power was watching over her in that moment. Fucking ThAnk YOu. Fucking hell.

After ungluing her paws from the floor, she made her way stiffly to the island in the kitchen and hopped up on one of the bar stools. She didn’t know how Tony-fucking-Stark felt about animals on the tables. She knew her family and friends from back home didn’t let it fly, so, caution instead of careless.

She did somewhat sit in the chair, her back legs under her in the seat, and her front paws on the counter edge.

Stark gave her an amused look at that, but she’d be damned if she was anything but polite. She didn’t want to get kicked out now, not when her favorite Marvel character was there, serving her chicken on a small paper plate.

She ate with as much manners as a cat could hold, her eyes never leaving the man in front of her and low-key hoping to impress him with her impeccable cat-manners. He was also staring back, looking over her with a critical look in his eye. She knew she wasn’t the most well-groomed cat, but she sure as shit wasn’t licking herself clean. Gross.

The man hummed, a small frown forming on his face as he looked her over.

She felt a small swell of indignation at this, to see the assessment in his eyes and find herself lacking. A small well of hurt also accompanied it, but she was going to ignore it.

She glared up at him, her big cat-eyes making it lose some of the desired effect. Who was he to judge her? She knew his life like the back of her hand (paw?) and he had to right to judge her. He looked worse than her any day of the week after hermiting out in his lab, so forgive her for not sticking her tongue on fur that had been dragged all over Malibu.

A part of her knew she was probably overreacting (though her tantrum was mental, so unless he was hiding a telepathy ability in there...) a smidgen, but it had been a stressful week.

She huffed at him and jumped off the seat to the floor, very much intending to explore, look around and see if he had any cool techy toys she could play with. Corvin was a snoop, sue her.

Except her grand plan was thwarted by a pair of muscly arms that, if she had been human, she would have salivated at. Hell, she was now, but that thrust a whole can of worms into her unwilling cat arms, because, shit, she couldn’t get laid in this body. Which was a fucking tragedy. The universe was laughing, she was sure. Stick her with a hottie she held the biggest fucking lady boner for, but stick her in a body where she couldn’t get some of that sweet, sweet ass. Unless she took a foray into bestiality, but that was a heavy ‘no-go’ zone of thought for her.

Corvin didn’t have any more opportunity to weep over the tragedy of her now nonexistent sex life, because she was being tossed out the front door.

 

Corvin’s second discovery of the night: Tony Stark was an asshole.

 

 

(AN: HAVE A SHITTY 30 MIN DOODLE 


	3. Bebe Rexha: ‘Ima Mess’ is Good Background Music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Cat runs around, does stupid shit like a the moron she is and picks up a mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *YEETS ANOTHER CHAPTER AT YOU FUCKING GREMLINS*  
> Take it you heathens!
> 
>  
> 
> Honestly tho, Tony you are valid and we all love you. Licorice is gonna help you on your feet and we are gonna use a shit ton of macabre humor to get through this.

Chapter 3: Bebe Rexha: ‘Ima Mess’ is Good Background Music

It had been almost four months.

Four FUCKING MONTHS!!

Saying she was upset would be an understatement. For four months she had been a cat, living on the streets of Malibu. She stopped regularly at Stark’s house, maybe once every few days to snoop, but he was never in. It sucked balls, and she was upset that her chance at picking the brain of her favorite character had slipped through her clawed toes.

There were many downsides to being stuck as a cat for that long, for one: rainy days. Blegh. The first day it rained caught her by surprise and drenched her as she tried to find suitable cover. She had hid under tables, under dumpsters and cars and still managed to get soaked every damn time. And it was a pain to get dry after, her floof held water like a sponge.

Secondly: food. Food was an off and on thing. Sometimes she'd be drowning in offerings of food from tourists, sometimes she’d be left high and dry for days at a time and have to scavenge in the trash or beg outside restaurants. Or she’d steal. Four months on the street gave her mad game in stealing. She was able to snatch food out from under people’s noses now, but it had been a big trial and error learned skill. She lost count how many times she’d been swatted away by hands, purses and the occasional broom.

Thirdly: her fur. Her FUR, her poor poor fur. By the end of the first month, Corvin’s fur was so matted and tangled she looked more like a gremlin than a cat. It was painful at times, even, her fur twisted so bad it pulled at the skin under it.

On one particularly windy day, she had stumbled upon a salon of sorts at the edge of the city. She had sat there for a bit, bemoaning that she couldn’t go in and get her fur sorted out by some hairdresser. A blow drying sounded orgasm worthy at this point, and she almost moaned at the sight of a fine-tooth comb.

It was as if her prayers had been answered as a tall, skeletal woman with bright purple hair walked out of the salon, leaving the door wide open to Corvin’s sneaky self.  She had dashed inside and hopped onto a chair, hoping that a hairdresser would humor her.

‘ _Please please please please’,_ Corvin chanted in her head.

“Hey Darla! Come take a load of this!” a bright, feminine voice said to Corvin’s left. She turned to see a short, squat woman with short, dark red hair. The woman had an oval shaped face and a pointy chin, with dainty features. She looked like a faerie, honestly.

“Oh mah Gawd, is tha a kitty?” another voice said, and Corvin held back a hurl at the sound of it. It sounded just like when an old man wrote a ‘high school’ set movie and hired 30 year olds to play teenagers who had no fucking idea how the youth spoke. Exaggerated vowels, high pitched ‘y’s  and ‘g’s sounded like she was choking on a rubber ball. She turned to see another woman, probably Darla, who looked like she walked straight out of a 90’s kid catalog.

Who the fuck wore denim with denim??? And was that a floral scarf being used as a belt? God, she was wearing chunky jewelry, too. The gaudy stuff that looked like a kid had went to a landfill, grabbed a bunch of random shit and strung it together. Jesus Fuck, there was cheetah print ELBOW PATCHES!

Dear God, she was in Hell. She was certain, because her soul was screaming in agony into the Void.

Corvin tried not to focus on the absolute tragedy in platform boots and turned back to the Fae to her left. A desperate look came on Corvin’s face that screamed ‘please don't let this woman touch me.’ Sadly, the fae lady seemed unable to read cat emotions, and just smiled down at her.

In the end, Corvin did get her fur done. And if, in the process, she was forced to wear a metallic stretchy pet coat with pink pom-poms on it (that was probably made for the chihuahua shivering in the corner of the salon), only she would know.

At the tail end of the fourth month mark since her close encounter with the Stark kind, found Corvin holed up in her niche. It was a small space, between two close buildings, an a radiator that was poking out of one building as roof. She had found the place by chance about two months in and made it her own. She had brought back all sorts of things she found to make it at least a bit homey. Discarded beanie caps, lost gloves, seashells and bits of seaglass, some jewelry she’d found laying around, a watch she had found (handy to tell the time), and more. It was fairly comfortable, the cloth things she found made for a makeshift bed.

She had visited the salon just last week, thankfully Darla wasn’t there, but Georgina (the fae lady) was. So Corvin’s fur was a little tangled, but nowhere near the monstrosity it had been the first month. Maybe she could steal a brush next and bring it here, it would give her something to rub against to detangle herself a bit.

With a new goal in mind, Corvin slipped out of her hovel and into the dusk-covered Malibu. The city was still jam packed with people, some drunk enough already she could probably wrestle the shirts off their backs without too much trouble.

She prowled the streets for a few hours, eating a few scraps people threw her way and searching for her next victim. It was reaching midnight when Corvin found one, a couple of college girls walking around outside a club. She dug into one of their purses as the shortest girl of the group bent over the puke along the sidewalk, the other girls patting her back (un)helpfully.

Corvin found a small purple and black hairbrush in the first bag and bit into the soft handle before taking off into the night, cackling internally in sweet sweet _victory_. She should have done this ages ago.

Four months ago Corvin would have never thought she’d become a petty thief. Or be somewhat successful in it.

After stashing her new brush in her little home and spending a bit of time rolling it around between her paws to try and position it just right. It kind of worked? She was able to rub her face across it and detangle a cobweb that had got stuck between two of her whiskers, so she was counting it as a win.

After that, she decided not to waste the rest of the night and went out to see what street performers were out and about. Maybe she could do a weird little dance in front of one and draw a crowd. The more known she was as ‘the cat of Zuma beach,’ the more people came to see her and, more often than not, bring her food. It was a win.

But, before she could go gallivanting off into the night, she felt a light tug in her chest, a small wiggle of paranoia that urged her in one direction.

Ah! And that was another thing! The weird feelings she had been getting for the past four months, the tugs in her body pulling her this way and that. And for good reasons. She dodged a lot of assholes listening to her gut. She’d almost call them her ‘spidy-sense,’ but since she was a cat and didn’t want to steal Spider-tot’s gimmick, she called it her cat-sense as a common courtesy. Maybe she could call it her ‘meow-monitor’ or ‘pussy-perception’ (that one was her favorite). She was sure it was going to get her in trouble one of these days, but eh, she was already a cat. She filled out her ‘this is bad’ quota for the rest of her life.

Now, the senses were tugging her towards a specific thing. So, like any dumbass in a horror film, she followed it.

She was half-surprised-but-really-not when it set her on a familiar route to Stark’s mansion.

‘My anti-clique sense is tingling,’ she thought as she trot up the path to the giant house. ‘Gotta be ready to dodge any of that shit, i don't feel like walking into some sort of tragic rom-com’ she shuddered at the thought. Thoughts of overly sappy pining stares from across the room, the ‘i'm just going to avoid them because i sooo don't like them’ when they CLEARLY liked the damn person, stupid-ass miscommunications that could be solved if the people in the stories just fucking _talked_ to each other for once instead of gloriously eye-fucking each other whenever in range of sight, the love confessions after knowing them for a handful of days with barely two words spoken between them. God, it all made her nauseous just thinking about it.

‘Just fuckin’ end me if it gets that far,’ Corvin thought, praying to whatever higher power would listen, ‘jus’ do it, mate.’

She padded up to the front door, unsurprised to find it locked, but very surprised to see lights on inside. A dim glow shown from the windows, curtains made of some rich stuff clogging most of the light.

He was home. This must be investigated.

Operation “Stalk the Stark”: **_commence._ **

Toddling around the outside of the house proved fruitful results, as the garage was wide open. She, naturally, invited herself in.

Corvin ogled at the expensive cars lining the sides of the garage after wandering through the winding entrance. Impressive mechanical shit was littered about, a very fine layer of dust coating the edges and tables.

Damn, he really wasn’t here all those months.

But **_Holy Shit_ ** , she was Tony Stark’s garage! And she was deadass certain this was his workshop. The place he made the Iron man suit at. She wondered where it was. The display cases where his suits normally sat were not there. So maybe they were in that weird suit-cellar?

She didn’t dwell on it long, not when the tug in her gut got stronger, urging her to move forward and further into the garage. Trotting into the workshop, Corvin noted some things, like how the lights were dim and the low murmur of a mechanical voice at the far end of the room.

“ _-it is  78 degrees out, the forecast calls for a chill night due to a cold front coming in from the ocean. Tomorrow is overcast-_ ” JARVIS was practically whispering, a soothing tone laced with worry that surprised her. She knew JARVIS was advanced, but hearing the emotions? Another level.

Another sound filtered through her ears as she moved closer, harsh and heavy breathing, low, ugly sobs that sounded painful. God, was Tony hurt??

Corvin picked up the pace racing over to where she heard him (because who else would be allowed down here?). She found him folded into a ball next to a table, tools scattered along the floor as if he had fell and taken the table with him. She couldn’t see his face, just a mop of greasy, messy hair poking from between his knees. His arms were wrapped around his knees, hiding his head as if he was preparing for a blow. Fuck, he was having a panic attack.

Without having to think about it, she moved over, pulling a loud purr from the depths of her chest. Cats had soothing qualities, right? She could help, even vertically challenged as she was now.

Corvin sniffed at him, smelling a bouquet of unpleasant things. Blood, vomit, greasy fast food and a sour smell she was certain was either fear or panic. Even with all that she came closer, licking at him lightly in hopes to alert him to her presence. It didn’t seem to work, so she cranked up the purring and settled in for the long haul. She sure-as-shit wasn’t going to leave him like this, not when she could help.

She rested her body against his legs, the ball he was clenched in was too tight for her to wiggle into.

Now Corvin had some experience in this department. Not that she was going to be spilling her sob story, but, honestly, who didn’t have one? She was one of the lucky ones who was able to pull herself out of that dark place before it was too late, she got the help she needed and healed. And after all the dust was settled, she learned how to go about helping others. Having a first hand experience with this stuff did wonders when she was helping others.

She was rather limited as she was, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t help ground him. So she purred, she rubbed and batted at his hair, giving him something physical to latch onto and bring him back. It took awhile for the hyperventilating to ease up and sobbing to abate, but she was patient, coaxing him little by little to calm down. The sharp sour smell faded bit-by-bit.

It was another few minutes of just him shivering for a pair of whisky colored eyes to peek out at her.

Tony uncurled, his good arm (one was in a sling, she noted) reaching out towards her. Corvin sniffed his fingers, smelling strong disinfectant and a hint of something dusty under it. She pressed her face into his hand, one eye scrunching up.

He pet her with one hand for a bit, his fingers moving in soft, repetitive motions. Tony uncurled more and more as time went on, enough for her to slide into his lap and huddle against him. All the while he stared at her like he was seeing something else, or as if he couldn't really understand it.

His face, now that she could see it, was messed up. Bruises around both eyes, along his left cheek and forming a necklace around his neck. A bandage over his left cheek and one over the bridge of his nose. His whole face was red and sunburned, blisters forming along his forehead. There appeared to be makeup on him, skin-toned foundation over the burns that had been rubbed or ran off during his panic attack. Some cakey shit some poor intern probably bought for themselves from a drug store to save money (honestly, same tho) and slapped on Tony because they had no other option.

Careful not to touch any of the burns or bruises, Corvin leaned up and pressed her nose against the tip of his.

“I don't think you can kiss these boo-boos away, licorice.” His voice was rough, like he'd been gargling nails and chewing sandpaper. It started her.

Both of his hands were petting her now, the injured one’s movements smaller. She kept the purring on full-force, booping his nose with hers again, hoping he got her message.

 _Im here_ , she thought, _I got you_.

Corvin’s whole body ached for him in empathy. Because _holy fucking shit_ did it look like he got the stuffing knocked out of him. And she had an inkling where and how.

Tony made a sound, a long, huffing sound like he’d rather do anything else what what he was about to do. He shuffled around, keeping his bad arm around her while the other reached up for the edge of the table. Took him a hot second, but he managed to stand, holding Corvin against him.

Tony shuffled to one side of the workshop, his steps slow and dragging. Corvin could feel the jump in his gait as he limped over to the couch.

“Sir, might i recommend going to rest?” JARVIS said overhead.

“JARVIS, mute: level three security.” Tony cut off. JARVIS did not reply.

Corvin meowed at the man as he continued to the couch and sat down a bit rougher that she thought he should. He was silent for a long time, just looking down at her, his eyes on her but his mind far far away. She did her best to comfort him: purr against him and nuzzle his good arm to keep him calm.

“Everything is a mess…” Tony’s voice rasped, “and i don’t know what to do.” tears tracked against his cheeks, running through the cracks in his foundation.

Corvin thanked whatever deity was listening that she was a cat in that moment. No way he’d open himself up to her if she had been human. Knowing his character, he would have pushed it down, shoved it all in a little box, and put on a mask had she been standing on two legs instead of four. He needed to let this out. If what she think happened really did just happen, then he needed to talk about it. And she didn’t remember him ever really opening up about the torture in Afghanistan in the movie to any of his friends so she was happy to help.

And if he thought she was just some non-sentient animal, who’d have no real understanding of what he was saying while he spilled his guts, well… that was her guilt to bare.

“I dont know what to do,” he whispered, his voice groaning out like the creaks of the wind passing through an old tree’s branches.  

 _I got you, i got you_ , she thought hard, as if she could telepathically tell him, focusing on soothing rumbles and soft, whiskery nuzzles against his cheek. She was cradled in his lap, his good arm around her, his bad arm held at an awkward angle away from his chest.

He mumbled some things to her for awhile, incoherent murmurs mixed with a few spare words she could pick out. ‘Suit’ and ‘hot’ was frequent, as was ‘Yinsen’ and ‘Raza.’

Holy shit, was this a lot of shit. She knew those names and she knew what they meant. It cemented her theory that Tony just got out of captivity and this was the setting of the first Iron Man movie.

Corvin had to forcibly shove down her fan-freak-out, because, while she was excited to be witnessing such a pivotal moment in history, she also had a PTSD riddled man holding her and she wasn’t enough of a douche to leave him hanging while she had a freakout.

Tony, the amazing man he is, was never one to sit idly for long. And he cemented that fact by shaking himself out of his daze quickly after her revelation.

Clearing his throat, Tony looked her right in the eyes, consideration clear in the whisky-colored irises.

“I think it’s time for a shower, don't you?” he said, his voice coming out stronger than before, but still rough around the edges. He stood slowly, one arm wrapped around her still. Corvin shifted her weight the best she could, digging her back paws (sans claws) into the space between his pants and his stomach, standing on the fold in the clothing. All he had to do was hold her body to his chest and let her back legs do the work.

She could see a small quirk in his lip as he noticed what she did. Pleased that she amused him, Corvin purred all the way through the elevator ride to the upper floor and into his room.

He set her down on the bed (albeit reluctantly) and looked around for clothing. She stayed where she was, watching him closely as he dug for a shirt in his drawers, her tail flicking every now and again. He disappeared into the bathroom, not bothering to close the door as he began stripping out of his soiled clothing.

Now, Corvin was no saint, be even she was courteous then and turned away from the door to give him privacy. But it was a near thing. Lord-have-mercy on her poor poor cat soul, she was only human (feline??) and did she ever want to peek at the show, but she’d feel dirty if she did it now. Like she was taking advantage over a hurt man and that was not how she rolled.

She’d wait until he was whole and healthy before she ogled, thank you very much.

She spent his shower time snooping his room, trying to find out what an eccentric billionaire hid in his sock drawers. She was saddened to find no goodies to be found, no sexy toys or even a pair of fuzzy cuffs, just some condoms and lube packets. Very vanilla.

 _Come on, Tony, you’re ruining ur playboy vibe here_ , she thought to herself as she sniffed around his night stand. While she wasn’t expecting the dude to have a sex dungeon or anything, she was at least expecting a little sumthin’ sumthin’. Like a dildo or cock ring. But there wasn’t.

A bit disappointing, but eh, whatever rocks the man’s boat.

Maybe he hid some stuff in his workshop? Corvin promised to herself to go on a scavenger hunt later to sniff out any and all naughty things. But for now, she’d continue snooping through his stuff here.

If she was honest (and many times she was to a disrespectful degree), his room felt, well, un-roomy. There was nothing in it that really marked it as ‘his’ space. There was no nicknacks, no photos or books. Were it not for the cloths in the closet and drawers, she would have thought this was a guest room.

No wonder the man didn’t sleep if his room felt this bare. Like a stranger in his own home.

She heard a thump in the bathroom. A loud, painful thump.

Corvin raced over to the open door dashed inside to see Tony slumped against the far wall of his enormous shower. (seriously, holy shit Tony, you could fit a car in there..)

She moved to the side of the glass door, pawing at the clear glass next to the downed man. Tony was in the middle of a full-blown panic attack, his breath was heavy and his body was shaking, arms over his head even as the water was cut off (probably by JARVIS).

She was kind of freaking out. Corvin was fairly sure that having two back-to-back panic attacks was really really bad, especially in his condition. And, from the looks of it, this panic attack was uglier than the one he had in the workshop.

Shit.

She moved as quick as she could, greatly hindered by her small body and weight. She was just nosing the sliding glass door open, when Tony fell unconscious due to over-hyperventilation.

Double shit.

While she was glad he couldn’t hurt himself, because he was out fucking cold, she was rather distressed that he had fallen unconscious at all. She didn’t exactly have a doctor to ask, but she took a wild guess and assumed it was due to multiple things all piling up on top of one another at a over-heaping degree and overwhelming him. The exhaustion from his time in captivity, the stress of the return, the sudden release of the ‘im going to die any second’ mentality, and the two major panic attacks.

Thinking about it like that, she wasn’t too shocked that he hand passed out.

She just wish he had done it somewhere a little more forgiving on his neck.

It didn’t take her too long to run off and snatch a pillow, because there was no way in hell she was going to be able to move his ass to the bed. Thankfully, he had slumped against the wall when he had passed out, upright. So it took some handy dandy maneuvering to get him laying on his side with his good arm, pillow under his head (she just kinda… shoved him over? Eyeballed where to put the pillow down, then pushed her entire weight into his side and got him to slump over. His head was partially on the pillow so she was counting it as a success.)

She also nipped a bunch of Tony’s ridiculously fluffy towels to use as blankets for him. One: because he was still damp from the shower. And two: no fucking way was she able to pull that heavy ass comforter off of his bed. The damn thing weighted ten times her own weight and she wasn't fuckin jacked like that, man.

It was a good forty minutes later that she sat back, satisfied with her work.

Tony’s head was kinda on the pillow, his chin brushing the shower floor. About six towels covered the man, looking kinda lumpy and haphazard.

She didn’t have any fucking thumbs, ok? Can't expect five star turn down service when she cant even crack open a can of Coke.

But Tony was covered! And somewhat comfortable?

At least more so than he would have been, had she left him slumped against the wall. But she couldn't just leave him like that. He was such a damn mess. And God, if that wasn’t such a life mood she could roll with.

Corvin also got a good look at his body, in a non-sexual way, of course. Kinda hard not to see what's going on when there is a man laying naked on the floor and your whole body is within the foot distance right above the floor. Everything was eye-level for her now. And oh boy, did he look like _shit_.

For one: Arch-reactor. Holy shit, she’d be amazed if it didn't look so damn painful. It was a bright blue star in the middle of a patch-worked chest of painful, half-healed injuries, and nasty looking purple and blue bruises. His whole chest looked misshapen by the device, and it was only heightened by his frail, starved body. She could see his ribs, could count the veins against the barely-there meat on his body.

Holy fuck, he looked half dead. All of her thirsty-bitch thoughts were shoved into a tiny box in her mind, thoroughly and utterly smashed down by the surge of protectiveness and ‘must help this man’ feelings.

She could feel it. Creeping under her skin and into her chest, snaring around her heart with burning, claw-like fingers.

Compassion, oof.

She could feel herself slipping into that caregiver role she fell to damn easily into. But she couldn't leave this man like this, not when she could do something, _anything_ , to make his life a little less hellish after such an awful event. And to all the events she knew were to follow.  

She curled up next to him, and it was with a loud, put-upon sign (that was really just so she could later deny all willfulness) that Corvin thought:

‘ _Well, i guess i'm in this for the long haul_.’

**Author's Note:**

> cat form: https://d2pu2bk1b66iw6.cloudfront.net/photos/2015/07/02/6-108473-red-norwegian-forest-cat-1435853098.jpg


End file.
